Almost all economists agree that taxes on imports are, in fact, passed on to consumers. Why? Because that’s what the evidence says, and it’s very hard to come up with an alternative story.
On the other hand, Trump loyalists — which these days means almost the entire Republican Party — insist as a group that foreigners, not American consumers, pay taxes on imports. Why? Because Donald Trump says so. — Paul Krugman, “Trumpism, Stalinism and the Tariff Debate.”
The New York Times has a piece headlined “The Star-Making Machine That Created ‘Donald Trump,'” which I decline to read or link to, because I suspect Mother Times doesn’t take credit for her own heavy lifting on that project (see “But her emails!”, etc.).
If you have a greater interest in the Who Gives a Shit? File than I do, you’ll have to do some hunting to find the thing, because the NYT yanked it off the top of the homepage and buried it on page three of a search under his name after the carny barker found himself in the shooting gallery again.
Now, I am not in favor of summary execution of those who commit golf, not even TFG. Some unbalanced types insist on playing with their little white balls in public, and for most an extended period of confinement in a psych ward or correctional facility should restore them to a semblance of mental health, or at least keep them off the lawn in what should be public parks, available to all free of charge.
Anyway, for the Clown Prince of Mar-a-Lardo it’s not even about “playing” golf, which is just something else he lies about and cheats at. It’s another day at the office, a fundraising opportunity.
As Billy Penn once said, “The tallest trees are most in the power of the winds, and ambitious men of the blasts of fortune.”
And thus the Clown Prince finds himself as a supporting character in a new reality series, “Duck & Cover,” in which a conga line of heavily armed loons has a go at a maniac masquerading as a presidential candidate on the campaign trail.
Bit of a comedown, from star to second banana. Oh, well, it’s a living. Awaiting a blast of fortune indeed.
In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country. And it’s a shame.
You know how you can tell this is bullshit? Because if it were actually happening, TFG would have a piece of the action, through a shell company incorporated in Delaware with headquarters in Saudi Arabia and a board of directors drawn from Interpol’s Red Notices.
Remember Trump Steaks? Ran out of the money at Aqueduct and straight into your refrigerator.
How much capital would it take to start snapping up struggling animal shelters and add drive-through windows? Poach the Chihuahua that used to shill for Taco Bell? (That’s a cookin’ joke, son!) Better yet, make J.D. Vance wear a Chihuahua suit, see if the hillbilly sonofabitch can generate a little positive cash flow. The dog’s cuter, but Vance is already on the payroll. Put Stephen Miller on the job; he’d deep-fry his own mother if he had one.
Before you could sing a bar of “(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?” TFG would have franchises out the wazoo. Most of them along the border, of course. Your customers are your workforce and vice versa. It’s practically a perpetual-motion money machine.
And he’d tell you all about it on TV, too.
Just not as though it were a bad thing.
If the TV hucksters are going to pitch these affairs as though they were sporting events I think the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency should drug-test the competitors.
I’ve been in rooms with people who behaved like Felonious Punk did last night, thanks to various and sundry powders and potions, and we never once thought about running them for president. We thought about running away from them before the cops came, is what.
One dark night in the Seventies I didn’t run fast enough and wound up in the Denver sneezer with a couple of pals. At some point around stupid-thirty our jailers emptied the drunk tank, stuffing all of us minor offenders into cells, so a PCP fiend could have the run of the joint without mayhem.
Dude is bouncing off the walls with his eyes out on stalks, screeching like a banshee about this, that, and the other, when finally a screw marches in and purrs, “If you don’t settle down I’m going to have to consider you an asshole.”
As he turns to leave our duster suddenly had a moment of clarity.
“What’s an asshole to you?” he asks.
At which point one of our cellmates shouts, “You an asshole, motherfucker! Now shut the fuck up! We tryin’ to get some sleep!”
It’s a shame these two dudes weren’t moderating last night’s “debate.”
Mad Blog Media 